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Disney Trading: Time For Steampunk

Part of me had been hoping that by ignoring the topic of tonight’s post, that it would simply cease to exist. That my refusal to recognize it would cause it to simply vanish from my mind and the collective Steampunk aesthetic.

I’ve been putting this post off for a week, in that feeble hope.

I’m very sorry to announce that Disney is at it again. Apparently, they weren’t happy enough with just the abomination that is the Mechanical Kingdom. Oh, no! Just redoing all their main characters into a Steampunk aesthetic wasn’t enough for them. They sense there’s money to be made with this whole Steampunk thing, so Disney is apparently determined to squeeze every last penny out of the causal Steampunk who cares only for the look.

These abominations are part of the upcoming limited edition Vinylmation Steampunk set created by Disney Design Group Artist Mike Sullivan and will be purchasable sometime in early 2011.

Here’s what really gets me about this set… it’s just a bunch of figurines with brass paint and cogs. They are literally going to do nothing more than sit on someone’s shelf collecting dust for its entire existence. This wanton spending on positively useless crap produced by large corporations is exactly what Steampunk is against. Disney obviously doesn’t get it, and neither does anyone who buys this.